Week 13

We had a good trip to the Museum of Natural History this Thursday thanks to the vigilant care of our parent chaperones. Our chaperones helped us moved through a crowded subway and museum smoothly and safely. Our students were able to spend a productive hour looking throughout the Hall of Eastern Woodland Indians at the many artifacts we've been reading about in our social studies unit. Thanks to Mr. Carmody, Mr. Claire, Mrs. Sanft, Mrs. Barrett, and Mr. Rodriguez for being awesome chaperones.

Here's what to expect for next week:

• We will be visiting the Armory on Tuesday. Please make sure your child is wearing running shoes. 
• We will have a Family Friday with Mrs. Ochoa. She will show us how to make awesome covers for our upcoming realistic fiction publish!

Please look through your child' homework folder. Some folders are a bit worn and will need to be replaced. Some folders need to be emptied of old sheets. To help your child stay organized, please encourage your child to clean out folder on Friday. 

Have a wonderful weekend!

Week 12

Thanks to all our families, who sent in more than enough food to make our Native American celebration fun! We had a nice soup and drink which many of us enjoyed but we also appreciate how hard it must have been for the Native folks to make a simple meal with the rudimentary cooking techniques we used.
We have more popcorn than we could eat in one sitting so we will save the unopened bags for our Winter holiday celebration.
Due to a very hectic day and a long meeting during the prep period, I was unable to paste in the weekly update in the homework folder. Please look out for that on Monday when we return from the holiday.

Here's what is happening next week:

• We will have a Buddy Meeting during our gym class on Monday!
• We are headed to The Natural History Museum this Thursday. Chaperone letters will be given out on Monday. We have six chaperones and would like for another adult to join us. Please consider coming if you are available. Please let me know if you can make it. 

Most students have finished their reading response (they were given time in class this morning to work on it)  and will only have to log in their reading this weekend.  Have a great weekend and enjoy your holiday!

Week 11

It was great seeing everyone for Parent Teacher Conferences this week. The support and feedback you have given is valuable and I thank you for your time and patience.

There were a few common questions and I will try to clarify them now:
The Words Their Way Program has started. We are done with our first sort and starting our second sort. Since this program requires a lot of independence on the parts of our students, we have taken a long time to establish clear routines. We are also adjusting the program to make it more helpful to our students. As the weeks go by we fall into a two week long cycle for each set of words. The next spelling test will be on Monday when we return from the Thanksgiving holiday. In the future, please expect the spelling tests to fall on every other Friday.

The best way to help our students become better test takers is to make sure our students are reading thoughtfully and carefully. The new exams remain shrouded in mystery but we can tell from the Core Curriculum outlines that our students are going to be challenged to read with interpretation, taking into account information from multiple sources and evaluating the information for its usefulness. Children will be asked to do so much more than to retell information; they will have to look at the author's purpose, think of themes taught through the texts, identify specific texts features and their purposes, etc., etc., etc.   This is a daunting task which is why we will work on it throughout the year. The best support you can give your child is to encourage him or her to listen attentively and take what they are learning and use those strategies. Each year there is a lot of anxiety about the tests and each year our students do fine.

Finally, due to the busy, busy weeks ahead, it is not possible to reschedule Character Dress Up Day this month or next. I appreciate the effort many families have made in thinking of a costume. We will try again in February, when we are in out fantasy unit.

Here's what is happening next week:

• The Unit 2 math test will go home on Monday. Please review and sign it before returning the test by the end of the week.
• We will take part in an Opera workshop with Mr. Delfausse on Tuesday. He sent out a form for families who are interested in seeing show at the Regina Opera. If you are interested in tickets for a show this weekend, you can email Mr. Delfausse at jd1@seijo.com. 
• We will have our Native American Thanksgiving on Wednesday. We have already had many parents contribute food and supplies for this event. Your child has a revised list of items we will need to have in on Wednesday. If you have volunteered. please check your child's homework folder for confirmation. 
• Schools will be closed on Thursday and Friday for the Thanksgiving holiday. 

Week 10

We've had a busy week! Music classes started today with our instructor Tor Snyder. We will learn to play the keyboard this year. Luckily, we had Mrs. Carmody and Mrs. Au helping us with our keyboarding skills! Out thanks to these helpful ladies!

Ms. Annette Tacconelli, visited us today to help us make wampum. We are extremely lucky to have such an expert artist volunteer to work with us! It required a great deal of patience but many of our kids persevered and quite a few have almost completed their wampum beading. Everyone took theirs home to continue making. We are most grateful to Ms. Annette for teaching us this fun activity!

Please check out the Class Playlist for our very first student video!!! Tali and Graydon did a great job quickly explaining how to write an introduction paragraph for an essay. Keep an eye out for further videos by other members of the class.

Here's what's coming up this week:

• Schools are closed on Monday for Veteran's Day.
• Report cards will distributed on Tuesday.
• Parent Teacher Conferences will take place on Wednesday. Children will be dismissed at 12 noon. 
• The class will visit the School Book Fair on Thursday at 11:15 am. The fair will be open starting Tuesday and families can visit anytime to purchase books.
• We are starting a new reading unit, Nonfiction. This unit will focus on the two types of non fiction, Narratives (biographies, historical accounts) and Expository (All About Books). We will learn to read nonfiction using text features in order to determine important information, and use multiple sources to build our expertise on a subject. As a challenge, we will read nonfiction with a critical eye, determing the author's point of view and noticing any bias in the information presented.
• We are also starting a new writing unit, Realistic Fiction. We will  revisit skills we used for our personal narrative unit and add on new strategies, so that we can contruct a short story based on a European Story structure (Exposition, character, problem, rising action, climax and resolution).
• In Math, we have started our work with Multiplication concepts and strategies. Please feel free to review multiplication facts up to the 12 times table with your child. There are several fun math games on our blog links that can help with that.

Finally, we should acknowledge the great volunteer work and contributions of  members of our community. Many people have stepped up to donate time, money and supplies to help those most affected by Hurricane Sandy. To witness the generosity and care is a great lesson to our children!
Please continue to contribute to our Penny Harvest.
Have a safe and happy weekend!

Week 9 (Once Again)

I hope everyone was able to endure these past few days safely.

As we return to the classroom this Monday, we will try our best to move forward and resume our previous goals. 

Here's the plan for this upcoming week:

• We return to Mock Elections! Grades 3, 4 and 5 will look into the candidates for presidents and vote for the candidate we feel best represents us. Our thanks to Ms. Fought for coordinating this event.
• We are off on Tuesday for Election Day! Please remember to vote.
• The Unit 2 Math test will take place on Wednesday. 

Due to school closures, we will reschedule some events, like Family Friday and Character Dress Up Day in upcoming weeks.

We are starting our Annual Penny Harvest. This event is always a highlight on our fall calendar and the spirit of charity is most needed these days. Please have your child begin bringing in spare change for collection. Many families have wondered about any outreach the school may be planning in response to Hurricane Sandy. Our parent coordinator, Ms. Wattenbarger, has put the call out for volunteers to assess needs and organizations we can work with. Please inquire with Ms. Wattenbarger if you are interested in volunteering at dwattenbarger@schools.nyc.gov . 
 

ADDENDUM: There will be a collection of specific supplies most needed for relief. In order to make it more efficient, our class has been asked to focus on bringing in paper towels and bottled water. If you would like to contribute, please bring these supplies to the MMR.

Have a safe and better weekend!